Vonda McIntyre: Dreamsnake

Head down, trembling, with sweat stinging her eyes, Snake stopped and collected herself. She had acted foolishly and she was ashamed of her panic. She must have frightened Jesse, but she could not yet make herself return and face her. She walked farther from the tent, not toward the desert where the sun and sand would waver like a fantasy, but toward a pocket in the canyon wall that was fenced off as a corral.

It seemed to Snake hardly necessary to pen the horses at all, for they stood in a motionless group, heads down, dusty, lop-eared. They did not even flick their tails; no insects existed in the black desert. Snake wondered where Merideth’s handsome bay mare was. These are a sorry lot of beasts, she thought. Hanging on the fence or lying in careless heaps, their tack shone with precious metal and jewels. Snake put her hands on one of the roped wooden stakes and rested her chin on her fists.

At the sound of falling water she turned, startled. At the other side of the corral, Merideth filled a leather trough held up by a wooden frame. The horses came alive, raising their heads, pricking their ears. They started across the sand, trotting, then cantering, all in a turmoil, squealing and nipping and kicking up their heels at each other. They were transformed. They were beautiful.

Merideth stopped nearby, holding the limp, empty waterskin, looking at the small herd rather than at Snake. “Jesse has a gift with horses. Choosing them, training them… What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry. I must have upset her. I had no right—”

“To tell her to live? Maybe you don’t, but I’m glad you did.”

“It doesn’t matter what I tell her,” Snake said. “She has to want to live herself.”

Merideth waved and yelled. The horses nearest the water shied away, giving the others a chance to drink. They jostled each other, draining the trough dry, then standing near it and waiting expectantly for more. “I’m sorry,” Merideth said. “That’s all for now.”

“You must have to carry a great deal of water for them.”

“Yes, but we need all of them. We come in with water and we go out with the ore and the stones Jesse finds.” The bay mare put her head over the rope fence and nuzzled Merideth’s sleeve, stretching to be scratched behind the ears and under the jaw. “Since Alex came with us we travel with more…things. Luxuries. Alex said we’d impress people that way, so they’d want to buy from us.”

“Does it work?”

“It seems to. We live very well now. I can choose my commissions.”

Snake stared at the horses, who wandered one by one to the shady end of the corral. The vague glow of the sun had crept up over the edge of the wall, and Snake could feel the heat on her face.

“What are you thinking?” Merideth asked.

“How to make Jesse want to live.”

“She won’t live uselessly. Alex and I love her. We’d take care of her no matter what. But that isn’t enough for her.”

“Does she have to walk to be useful?”

“Healer, she’s our prospector.” Merideth looked at Snake sadly. “She’s tried to teach me how to look and where to look. I understand what she tells me, but when I go out I’m as likely as not to find nothing but fused glass and fool’s gold.”

“Have you showed her your job?”

“Of course. We can each do a little of the other’s work. But we each have a talent. She’s better at my job than I am at hers and I’m better at hers than either of us is at Alex’s, but people don’t understand her designs. They’re too strange. They’re beautiful.“ Merideth sighed, holding out a bracelet for Snake to see, the only ornament Merideth wore. It was silver, without stones, geometric and multilayered without being bulky. Merideth was right: it was beautiful, but it was strange. ”No one will buy them. She knows that. I’d do anything. I’d lie to her, if it would help. But she’d know. Healer — “ Merideth flung the waterskin to the sand. ”Isn’t there anything you can do?“

“I can deal with infections and diseases and tumors. I can even do surgery that isn’t beyond my tools. But I can’t force the body to heal itself.”

“Can anyone?”

“Not… not anyone that I know of, on this earth.”

“You’re not a mystic,” Merideth said. “You don’t mean some spirit might cause a miracle. You mean off the earth the people might be able to help.”

“They might,” Snake said slowly, sorry she had spoken as she had. She had not expected Merideth to sense her resentment, though she should have. The city affected all the people around it; it was like the center of a whirlpool, mysterious and fascinating. And it was the place the offworlders sometimes landed. Because of Jesse, Merideth probably knew more about them and the city than Snake did. Snake had always had to take the stories about Center on faith alone; the idea of offworlders was hard to accept for someone who lived in a land where the stars were seldom visible.

“They might even be able to heal her in the city,” Snake said. “How should I know? The people who live there won’t talk to us. They keep us cut off out here — and as for offworlders, I’ve never even met anyone who claims to have seen one.”

“Jesse has.”

“Would they help her?”

“Her family is powerful. They might be able to make the offworlders take her where she could be healed.”

“The Center people and the offworlders are jealous of their knowledge, Merideth,“ Snake said. ”At least they’ve never offered to share any of it.“

Merideth scowled and turned away.

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t try. It could give her hope—”

“And if they refuse, her hope is broken again.”

“She needs the time.”

Merideth thought, and finally replied. “And you’ll come, to help us?”

It was Snake who hesitated now. She had already set herself to return to the healers’ station and accept the verdict of her teachers when she told them of her errors. She had prepared herself to go to the valley. But she put her mind to a different journey, and realized what a difficult task Merideth proposed. They would badly need someone who knew what care Jesse required.

“Healer?”

“All right. I’ll come.”

“Then let’s ask Jesse.”

They returned to the tent. Snake was surprised to find herself feeling optimistic; she was smiling, truly encouraged, for what seemed the first time in a long while.

Inside, Alex sat beside Jesse. He glared at Snake when she entered.

“Jesse,” Merideth said, “we have a plan.”

They had turned her again, carefully following Snake’s orders. Jesse looked up tiredly, aged by deep lines in her forehead and around her mouth.

Merideth explained with excited gestures. Jesse listened impassively. Alex’s expression hardened into disbelief.

“You’re out of your mind,” he said when Merideth had finished.

“I’m not! Why do you say that when it’s a chance?”

Snake looked at Jesse. “Are we?”

“I think so,” Jesse said, but she spoke very slowly, very thoughtfully.

“If we got you to Center,” Snake said, “could your people help you?”

Jesse hesitated. “My cousins have some techniques. They could cure very bad wounds. But the spine? Maybe. I don’t know. And there’s no reason for them to help me. Not anymore.”

“You always told me how important blood ties are among the city’s families,” Merideth said. “You’re their kin—”

“I left them,” Jesse said. “I broke the ties. Why should they take me back? Do you want me to go and beg them?”

“Yes.”

Jesse looked down at her long strong useless legs. Alex glared, first at Merideth, then at Snake.

“Jesse, I can’t stand to see you as you’ve been, I can’t bear watching you want to die.”